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vanishing and out biodiversity is disappearing on the Island so it’s pretty sad to see it just let it
<br />happen.
<br />
<br />AA: Right, today’s pretty sad, but I’m pretty much in the forest like every weekend so I’ve been in
<br />healthy forests and I’ve been in forests, where, you know, fence one side, fence not the other
<br />side and just the under story – like lotta places the understory is choking out the new growth
<br />that’s coming out because there’s no maintenance in that, in that new forest that you guys are
<br />trying to plant, also, that nobody seems to be really talking about – all the uluhe fern come up –
<br />the shaded tree really chokes out the new seedlings that come up and stuff, yeah, so.
<br />
<br />MK: I think there’s different viewpoints. It’s all about perspective so when I think of forest health I
<br />think of what like the forest used to look like before any introductions of man over them.
<br />
<br />AA: Yeah, \[unclear\] when I wasn’t up back then. Right?
<br />
<br />JM: Yeah, so, if, but I’m thinking along the lines of what did the forest look like before the
<br />introduction of feral pigs and, I think that the term “choked out” to me that actually means like
<br />that’s what a healthy forest looks like where you have complete forest that’s hard to walk
<br />through – that’s probably what the forest used to look like before there was mammals trampling
<br />through it, so, a hunter’s perspective – if they come in and they say OK, well, the forest is
<br />choked out – that might be what a healthy forest used to look like but it’s all perspective and a
<br />personal opinion – my personal opinion was like the more native species the better and if it
<br />makes it hard to walk through when there’s so much native species that it’s hard to walk
<br />through, I mean, I don’t need to walk through it, right? I see the forest – it’s healthy – and it’s
<br />collecting a whole lot of rainfall and not muddying up our stream, I’ve been to parts of the State
<br />where the streams run clean and there’s absolutely this beautiful native forest mauka of the
<br />stream, so, you know, it would be amazing to one day be able to go to a stream and look and
<br />actually see the bottom and say, wow, I can see the bottom, maybe I can filter this and just
<br />drink it right now, so, I guess it’s always just personal perspective and opinion but, you know, I
<br />value a forest that is hard to walk through. I value uluhe fern. Uluhe fern is a native species – it’s
<br />not invasive, what scares me is when I see native forests that are getting converted to only
<br />things like kahili ginger underneath – that Himalayan ginger is just like completely choking out
<br />the whole understory where there’s nothing growing and then you have a couple large trees
<br />that are slowly dying off – they can’t regenerate because of the Himalayan ginger that’s coming
<br />up, so, like I said, it’s just a different perspective.
<br />
<br />AA: Yeah, we can go on and on. Yeah, different perspectives – so anyway, just, you know another
<br />part is like instead of doing – it seems like you guys pretty much doing like one 100% eradication
<br />but maybe you guys can do like one game plan inside of there, right, and let the hunters kinda
<br />get the ungulates down to a specific number that the land can be helpful and use the pigs for a
<br />helpful part of your guys restoration too, like, could be like Mauna Kea when had 50,000 over
<br />sheep and it’s like that’s not cool, right, I agree with that abundance of game animals in a
<br />specific area but there can be a sustainable number that it can be beneficial for the forest and
<br />for the people as well. Right?
<br />
<br />SW: \[Unclear\] question?
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